Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ferrule assembly, a fiber alignment device, a ferrule device and a method of manufacturing the ferrule device.
Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1a is an illustrative view of a single-fiber ferrule assembly (ferrule device) 10 of a fiber optic connector in the prior art; and FIG. 1b is a cross section view of the single-fiber ferrule assembly 10 shown in FIG. 1a. 
As shown in FIG. 1a and FIG. 1b, in the prior art, during manufacturing the single-fiber optic connector, the ferrule assembly 10 comprising a ferrule 12 and a rear seat 11 connected to a rear end of the ferrule 12 is usually used. The rear seat 11 may be a plastic member formed on the rear end of the ferrule 12 by molding, or may be a metal member fixed on the rear end of the ferrule 12 by crimping.
As shown in FIG. 1a and FIG. 1b, a hollow chamber 14, for receiving an adhesive, is formed in the rear seat 11. An axial front port of the hollow chamber 14 is coaxial and communicated with a fiber bore 15 in the ferrule 12. During manufacturing the fiber optic connector, an enough adhesive is firstly injected into the hollow chamber 14 through an axial rear port (adhesive injection port) 13 by means of an adhesive injection needle (not shown), then a bared and cleaned fiber of the optical cable is inserted through the hollow chamber 14 and the fiber bore 15, fully filled with adhesive, of the ferrule assembly 10, then the adhesive is cured to fix the fiber in the fiber bore 15 of the ferrule assembly 10, then the ferrule assembly 10 is processed by a series of procedures, such as, grinding, polishing, testing, assembling, etc., and finally, a fiber optic ferrule device (finished ferrule assembly) is obtained.
In the prior art, a manufacturing error is unavoidable during manufacturing the ferrule assembly. Furthermore, a personal error may be occurred in size for easily fitting/assembling the ferrule assembly, for example, in order to easily insert the fiber through the fiber bore of the ferrule, the diameter of the fiber bore of the ferrule is formed to be larger than the outer diameter of the fiber, causing a size deviation between the outer diameter of the fiber and the inner diameter of the fiber bore of the ferrule. Thereby, it is likely to occur various errors in the ferrule assembly, for example, a center axis of the fiber is offset from a center axis of the fiber bore of ferrule due to a large gap between the fiber and the fiber bore of the ferrule, a center position of the fiber bore is offset from an ideal center position of the fiber bore determined with reference to an indexing feature, for example, an outer cylinder of a single-fiber ferrule or a guide hole of a multi-fiber ferrule. As a result, an actual center axis of the fiber in the fiber bore of the ferrule may be offset from an ideal center axis of the fiber determined with reference to the indexing feature of the ferrule due to these errors. The above factors may cause an irregular lateral shift of the center axis of the fiber, increase the insertion loss of mating a pair of fiber optic connectors and decrease the optical transmission performance of the fiber optic connectors.